


Game of Hearts

by HopelessHero



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:01:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopelessHero/pseuds/HopelessHero
Summary: Set just before the events of “Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts”, Cullen struggles to wrap his head around new romance and the enigma that is Inquisitor Shaeanya Lavellan. (Pretty rambly and part of what was intended to be a much longer piece, but I've lost motivation with it for now so I cleaned it up as a stand-alone piece. Might continue it in the future though!)
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford
Kudos: 12





	Game of Hearts

Despite their time spent together, there was still a lot Cullen didn't know about the Inquisitor. 

What little details he did possess had been gleamed from brief comments tucked inside other conversations, like hastily scribbled notes in the margins of a book. 

He could always ask Leliana, of course, there was little she and her ravens didn't know- or at least could find out if he requested. But that felt like cheating, somehow- like skipping to the end of a story before it had barely began- betraying a trust that had not yet had time to fully blossom.

And so, he waited patiently, read the book page-by-page, and resisted the urge to skip to the notes scribbled in the margins.

However, there was one thing he was already sure of: whatever life Shae had lived before the Inquisition, it had made her very good at hiding. Infuriatingly good, in fact.

At first he hadn't noticed. The crucial responsibility this job had brought with it meant his breaks were far and few between, and he considered himself lucky to find just an hour or two of daylight to walk the fortress grounds and stretch his restless legs. Of late, this time had become even more precious as it was the only opportunity he had to see Shae on a non-professional basis (the only alternative being in the war room, under the delighted- albeit scrutinising- gazes of Leliana and Josephine.) So, of course, he spent this time looking for her.

Emphasis on _looking_. She was a very difficult woman to find. 

At first, he put this down to the heavy burden of duty. The Inquisitor was a busy woman, no doubt about that. He understood that. He respected that. But he also pined for her. Maker, what he wouldn't give for just five minutes alone with her- where she could be his and he could he hers. No Corypheus. No Inquisition. 

He halted these thoughts as soon as they arose. They were selfish thoughts. The relationship had already been built on tentative foundations given the fact he was her advisor and she his superior. These were the exact sort of thoughts that would no-doubt crumble it if he allowed them to swell out of control. 

And so he told himself to be grateful for the precious breathing time when his duty granted it, and spent every moment of it looking for her in the hope that she might have the time to enjoy it with him.

Their first official romantic rendezvous atop the battlements had left Cullen's thoughts a giddy blur in the days that followed. He thought about her constantly- failed miserably when he tried to push those thoughts aside to focus on work- felt the pang of guilt when he feared this yearning might have a negative impact on his duty to the Inquisition.

But what made it even worse was that, in these few painful, but oh-so-blissful days, he saw hide no hair of her on his wanderings. 

By the third day, his only contact with her had been under the professional guise of the war room, and he was considering asking one of his troops if they had seen her on patrol. But that would be a risky, desperate move considering the whispers that were already circulating about the exact nature of his relationship with the Inquisitor, and he decided he could do without adding fuel to the fire.

_Fire!_

That was an idea.

It was always bitterly cold up here in the mountains, but today there was a more vicious kind of chill in the air: the sort that settles heavy in your chest and steals your breath when it blows. 

A Dalish from the temperate Free Marches, the change in climate had come as a shock for Shae, even after the snow-thick ground of Haven. It had only taken a day for her to submit to the need of wearing shoes inside the fortress, nigh a week before she stopped coming to morning briefings with her fur blanket still cocooned around her. 

That had been months ago now and, although she was acclimatising well, if she had a choice between the bitter wind outside and a cosy fire within, she would always pick the latter. 

And so, Cullen continued his search inside. He checked the main hall first, but found a room full of only tittering nobles and Varric writing by the hearth (“Not in here, Curly”). 

Still optimistic, he moved on, walking the fortress' corridors methodically, peeking into every room, hopeful he might find her tucked into a corner, reading the copy of Tale of a Champion that had been passed around Skyhold since they settled here. (The one that Cassandra hotly insisted didn't belong to her, and that her name written on the inside cover meant nothing.)

But, alas, his search was fruitless. 

By the time he found his way back to his office, he had a pocket full of quills and the knowledge that there is only so many times you can use the excuse “Can I borrow a quill?” when someone asks if they can help you before rumours start circulating about the heinous things you've been doing with them. 

And, of course, by now his desk was stacked so high with paperwork again that he doubted he would even see Shae come through the door should she grace him with a visit that afternoon. Not that it mattered, though. She didn't. 

He did, however, see her through the window just half an hour after he sat back down at his desk to work. His attention drifted at just the right moment, and there she was, walking across the courtyard below,a familiar book tucked under her arm. 

* * * 

Routines were good. Cullen liked routines. Routines built order- kept things running smoothly. They also- on a completely unrelated note that has nothing to do with anything- allow insight into what a person might be doing- or where they might be- at a given time. 

By the fourth day, Cullen had come to the damning conclusion that the Inquisitor had no routine whatsoever- a prospect he found as exciting as he did sheer madness. 

How something could function without some semblance of order eluded him, especially something as large and complex as the Inquisition. But here it was: trundling along like a steady wagon down a dirt track, gaining momentum with every successful raid, every trade deal secured, every favour procured from nobility, even if its driver was not always there to hold the reins.

From the start, Shae had made it very clear that the Inquisition wasn't her, and nobody could deny that she didn't exactly have the qualities of a disciplined leader. She shirked from her duties whenever she could; attention fazed in and out of important affairs; was absent from as many meetings as she attended...

But she was good with people. Somehow she knew just when she was direly needed, and popped back up just in time to smooth out an argument between a mage and a templar, or shake the hand of a visiting noble. 

At times like these, the minds of the commonfolk aren't focused on the need for strong armies to protect their boarders, or carefully-outlined trade deals to keep the kingdom's coffers full; their thoughts are in the fields- the villages- worrying about how they're going to drum up enough manpower to harvest the crops before they spoil, or procuring enough wood to reinforce the druffalo pens before the next storm rolls in.

Shae was far more at home out in the field than doubled over the war table. And, for that, the people loved her. Cullen loved her. 

She was a Herald who could give the people the care and attention the Maker had been denying them. That was the heart and soul of this whole operation. 

But kindness doesn't protect the commonfolk from mad, ancient magisters aspiring for godhood. That the Inquisition continued to run smoothly despite their non-conventional leadership was a credit to those working behind the scenes, Cullen decided. 

But none of this made locating said leadership any easier. 

On the fifth day, Cullen started to see this for what it really was: a game.

He had decided to spare himself from the hopeless search that day and, instead, was playing chess with Dorian, when he saw her across the garden. She smiled at them, but didn't stop, and, Maker, he fumbled his move like a child. It took every ounce of his willpower not to flip the board- to run to her- ask her how her day was going- if she maybe had ten minutes to--

Then it struck him.

Perhaps the need to be particularly alert to spot Dorian's cheating had granted him an edge he hadn't had before, but he suddenly saw this not as a blessing that their paths had finally crossed after days of wishing, but as a carefully orchestrated dance of which he was not in control of. 

The closest they had been to one another outside of the war room for the best part of a week and it was the one time he had taken a break from looking for her? That was no mere coincidence, surely? 

She had planned this.

This was some sort of game- a test to find out the boundaries of his affection, perhaps? Did what they have go beyond the excitement of a secret fling? Just how serious was he about this? How accommodating was he willing to be? 

Cullen smiled to himself. If it was a game she wanted--

“You're turn, Commander,” Dorian pulled him back from his private thoughts.

As the Inquisitor disappeared back inside, Cullen turned his attention back to the board. He picked up a pawn and twirled it between his fingers, considering. 

Yes. It _was _his move.__


End file.
